What is Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence was first mentioned back in 1964 in an article published by Michael Beldoch, but it was not until 1995 that it gained fame when the psychologist Daniel Golman published a book titled” Emotional Intelligence” now abbreviated to EQ.
The common consensus identifies Emotional intelligence as a person’s ability to understand and control their own emotions and the emotions of others.
There are three sub sections associated to EQ
• The ability to connect to emotions and use them for thinking and problem-solving tasks;
• The ability to control emotions, which includes regulating your own emotions
• The ability to promote happiness and relaxation in other people.
There are a number of models describing emotional intelligence, Golman’s is considered to be a mixed model. There are two models; Ability EQ (2004) and Trait EQ (2001), the main difference between them is that Trait EQ “encompasses behavioral dispositions and self-perceived abilities and is measured through self-report” , whilst Ability EQ focuses on the individual's ability to process emotional information and use it to navigate the social environment.
To put this in layman’s terms, Trait EQ is how you improve your life through reviewing your emotions whilst Ability EQ is how you use your EQ to live. Both terms are part of a whole, though both do try to encompass the whole picture. To be succinct, EQ is how you improve your control over your emotions and how you manage to control the emotions of others to reach the targets and goals you desire to reach.
When discussing emotional intelligence, we are first of all discussing emotions;
• Emotions of self means how to control your facial expressions, your body language, your dress code and how you speak.
• Emotions of others refers to learning to identify body language, facial expressions, speaking styles and adaptation per individual or group.
There are many highly successful individuals in the world, in many fields of expertise, but there are those that are more successful than others, this is partly due to their natural ability as well as their ability to learn to adapt, or be soft as well as when to be hard. Politicians are a prime example of people coming from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds yet all capable of winning over the votes of the electors. Top level managers are usually highly intelligent individuals that have leadership skills and scam artists are individuals that have learnt how to persuade others of an illusion. What all of these people have in common is usually a natural ability or awareness of how to present themselves and how to read others. We sometimes call that “street smarts” but in fact it is just a higher emotional intelligence level that enables them, whether they are educated or not, to progress through life.
To conclude: EQ is about controlling your emotions, once you control them you can then begin to control others too. Your worst emotion to control is fear! Once you can overcome this, the rest is easy.